


As It Was

by henriettahoney



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: (but not like in explicit detail), AU, Adam Parrish & Blue Sargent Friendship, Adam Parrish Is Trying His Best, Adam Parrish Loves Ronan Lynch, Adulthood, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Coma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Eventual Smut, M/M, Married Characters, POV Adam Parrish, Post-Canon, Richard Gansey III is a Good Friend, Ronan Lynch & Blue Sargent Friendship, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish Fluff, The Barns (Raven Cycle), adam and ronan are parents because i cannot stop, human!opal, idk what else to tag tbh, the gangsey is all grown up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-06-29 17:22:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19834984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/henriettahoney/pseuds/henriettahoney
Summary: “Want Daddy,” Opal said quietly. She wasn’t whining—she sounded resigned, and it gave Adam the notion that she was catching onto his lack of control over the situation.“I want Daddy, too, honey,” he told her, squeezing her to his chest. And then, because there was no but for him to add, no reconciliation, he said, “Come on. Let’s go home.”





	1. Chapter 1

“Daaad…am.”

“Ooo…pal.”

“Can we go on da…on da…”

“You wanna swing?”

Furiously, Adam Parrish’s daughter nodded her head, blonde curls bouncing around her flushed cheeks. 

Adam laughed, and kissed her nose, and settled her into the baby swing at the end of the set, pulling her back slightly and letting go to watch her propel forward. 

She shrieked and cawed and clapped her hands, and Adam felt his heart swell with admiration. 

He pulled his phone from his pocket as she swung back toward him and pushed her again, snapping a picture of her inside his husband’s text thread and adding the caption,  _ We miss you so much  _ before hitting ‘send.’ 

“Dadam!” Opal squealed after only another moment, arms to the sky. “Out! San’box!”

They had the park to themselves—it was late, nearing nine o’clock, and it had rained earlier in the evening—so Adam was content to allow her to run where she pleased, as long as he could keep an eye on her. He scooped her swiftly from the swing and set her on her feet, following at a much more leisurely pace behind her as she headed for the sandbox and climbed inside. Her clothes were wet, as was the sand, and he was already imagining the hell it was going to be to clean her off when they got home, but at least she was distracted. Anything he could do to keep her mind (or his own) off Ronan not being with them was a win in his book. 

“In, Dadam!” Opal insisted, smacking the sand next to her and coaxing water droplets to spray from its surface. 

“I don’t wanna get wet, baby,” he told her, snapping another picture while she was still for the moment. “I’ll watch you from right here.”

“P’ease?” Opal sighed, lower lip jutting out ever so slightly, and what the fuck choice did  _ that _ leave Adam? 

Slowly, he climbed into the sandbox, lowering himself onto the sopping ground. 

“San’cassa!” Opal exclaimed. “He’p!”

“Okay,” Adam agreed, a soft smile resting on his lips. The sand was cold beneath his fingers as he scooped it into a pile, and saturated enough not to budge when he rounded it out to form a dome. “What do you think? Is this a good castle shape?”

Opal studied the structure for a moment and nodded her head approvingly. “Yeah. I’ss good. Needs…towas.”

“Oh, of course,” Adam conceded very seriously, swiping his hand through the sand again and slowly building up the base for a tower on one side of the dome. “Is this where the princess lives?”

“P’incess Opa!” Opal declared, producing the exoskeleton of a leaf from beside her and sticking it into the castle's other side. “Two towas now.”

“Who lives in that one?” 

“Mmm…Dadam and Daddy.” Opal tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, smearing sand through it. “Cassa is done. Swide?”

Adam took a photo of the castle, which looked much more like a doorless hut with a chimney and a leaf protruding from the roof, and then wiped his hands on his jeans, hoisting Opal into his arms and carrying her over to the large playground set. 

“I’m gonna be right at the bottom to catch you, munchkin. Can you get all the way up those big girl steps by yourself?”

“I do it,” Opal said, full of conviction. She only stumbled once, and before Adam could ask if she was okay, she hollered down, “I tough tookie!” 

“You are a tough cookie,” Adam agreed, chest twisting slightly at the sound of what were usually Ronan’s words of encouragement for their daughter vacating his own lips. “Ready?”

With no response, Opal sat down at the edge of the slide, pushing off with her hands and screeching all the way down only to erupt into a fit of giggles when she landed in Adam’s arms. 

“Good job,” he told her, peppering her face with a myriad of kisses. “High five.”

Opal smacked her hand against his repeatedly, and then threw her arms around his neck, laying her head on his shoulder. “Hungy, Dadam. An’ we gotta tell da cows nigh’night. I’ss gettin’ dart.”

“It is getting dark,” Adam agreed. “Let’s go put those cows to sleep and get you some dinner, huh?”

“ _ Diiinna _ .” Opal pulled away, one hand on either of Adam’s cheeks, and licked her lips. “Is Daddy comin’ to dinna?”

Adam allowed himself a fraction of a second to close his eyes and take a breath. “No, sweet pea. Not tonight. What sounds good? What do you want?”

“Want Daddy,” Opal said quietly. She wasn’t whining—she sounded  _ resigned _ , and it gave Adam the notion that she was catching onto his lack of control over the situation. 

“I want Daddy, too, honey,” he told her, squeezing her to his chest. And then, because there was no  _ but _ for him to add, no reconciliation, he said, “Come on. Let’s go home.”

* * *

Back in Singer’s Falls, Adam removed Opal from the car and took her hand, allowing her to lead him to the open barn where the cows took shelter at night. They lay so close to one another that Adam couldn’t fit between them, so he let Opal go and watched as she wove around them, bending to kiss each one atop the head. Some had no reaction at all, while others affectionately blew huffs of hot breath out their noses or swiped their oversized tongues across her cheeks. 

When she reached Adam again, she curled her fingers around the hem of his shirt and dropped to her knees. 

He did the same. 

Opal closed her eyes, bowed her head, and began, silently, to pray. 

Adam was not religious. He never had been, and he never would be, but if Ronan wasn’t here to perform this nightly ritual with their daughter, he would stand in every time. Rather than praying to anything in particular, Adam envisioned a white light encompassing himself and Opal, and then extending, in essence, to Ronan.  _ Protect us _ , he thought, to the universe.  _ Keep me from losing my mind. No matter what happens, keep me on track to take the best care of her that I know how. Help me stay strong and grounded and as honest as he is, even when she asks the hardest questions. At least once every day, I think,  _ I don’t know if I can do this.  _ But I have to. Just help me keep moving. Help me— _

“Done, Dadam. Nigh’night time?”

Adam blinked himself out of his thoughts and stood up, lifting Opal onto his hip when she reached for him. 

“Goodnight, farm,” Adam said, voice low. 

“Nigh’night, fa’m,” Opal echoed. 

“Goodnight, barn.”

“Nigh’night, ba’n.”

“Goodnight, cows.”

“Nigh’night, cows.”

“Goodnight, moon.”

“Nigh’night, moon.”

Adam pressed his lips to Opal’s forehead, swaying her gently back and forth. “Is there anything else you wanna say goodnight to?”

Opal was quiet for a long moment. Then, barely more than a whisper: “Nigh’night, Daddy.”

Adam swallowed. He could handle this with some degree of composure anywhere else, but not here. Not where everything looked and smelled and felt like Ronan. Not where Ronan belonged to everything and everything belonged to him. Not where they’d fallen in love, nearly ten years ago now. 

He couldn’t keep a single tear from slipping down his cheek, but, dutifully, he repeated, “Goodnight, Daddy.”

The stars were out in earnest when they exited the barn, and Opal tilted her head toward them, eyes and mouth wide with marvel. “So p’etty.”

“Not as pretty as you,” Adam told her, tickling her side and releasing his hold on her as they reached the porch. “We gotta get you cleaned up before we can eat. And me, too.”

“An’ da ca’?” Opal asked, pulling open the screen door. 

“Not tonight,” Adam said, ruffling her hair as he slid his key into the lock. “But tomorrow, yeah, the car has to be cleaned. We got sand everywhere. Are you gonna help me?”

“I he’p,” Opal assured him, stepping over the threshold into the house and kicking off her shoes. The wet smack of her feet across the floor tripped a sensor in Adam’s brain that told him he needed to mop  _ immediately _ , but, he reasoned, as long as there was no mud, it could wait. 

He took off his own shoes and trailed Opal into the downstairs bathroom, stripping her out of her clothes and starting the water before settling her into the tub. They didn’t use this one often, but tonight, it seemed, they were both thinking with efficiency, unwilling to make the trek up the stairs only to come back down to the kitchen and then head straight back up for bed. 

Adam washed his own hands thoroughly, and then scrubbed Opal’s hair and body until there were no traces of sand left, plucking her from the bath and drying her off as it drained. 

In the laundry room, he rifled through the basket of clean clothes he hadn’t yet found the time or energy to put away and dressed Opal in a nightgown, swapping his own soiled jeans and t-shirt for a pair of flannel pajama pants and one of Ronan’s tank tops. 

“Grilled cheese?” he asked, because he didn’t have the energy for anything else. 

Blessedly, Opal accepted. 

They cooked and began eating their dinner in near silence, until Adam’s phone buzzed harshly against the table. 

He started in surprise and picked it up, clicking the green icon to answer the call when he saw that it was Blue. 

“Hello?”

“Hey,” she said, casually, as though she weren’t calling to make sure Adam hadn’t fallen apart. He appreciated the nonchalance and lack of acknowledgement to an immeasurable degree. “What’s up?”

“Just brought Opal home from the park,” he told her, wrapping an arm around Opal’s waist to keep her upright, balancing on his knee as she was—still too small to reach the table sitting in a chair of her own. 

“Have you eaten?”

“Yeah. We’re having dinner right now.”

“Good,” Blue said, squashing most of the relief from her tone. “Is Henry watching her tomorrow?”

“He’ll be here bright and early,” Adam assured her. “I only have half a shift, though, ‘cause she’s got a checkup at noon. He said he’d take her, but she hates it so much she throws a fit even with me, so I’m taking off at eleven.”

“This isn’t about not wanting people to do things for you, right?” Blue asked, slightly guarded, Adam figured, in case he got offended. 

He was far too tired for that. 

“This is just about my kid’s life being kind of upside down right now and me trying to do what little I can to keep things comfortable and familiar for her.”

“Okay,” Blue said, soft, because there was nothing else to offer. “I’ll let you go. But, Adam. Just. If you need  _ anything _ , don’t hesitate to tell us. Please.”

“I won’t,” Adam promised. “Talk to you soon.”

“We love you.”

“Love you guys. ‘Night.”

“Goodnight.”

* * *

Nearly an hour later, dinner long eaten, dishes washed and put away, floor spot mopped, because he hadn’t been able to help himself, Adam Parrish lay awake in bed, arms wound tightly around his sleeping daughter, crying silently into his pillow. 

In her father’s arms, Opal snored softly, eyes flickering back and forth with the tides of her dreaming. 

An hour away, in DC, Blue Sargent sat cross-legged on the couch, a mug of herbal tea in one hand, the other combing through her husband’s hair. 

On the same sofa, Richard Campbell Gansey III lay with his head in his wife’s lap and allowed himself to be comforted, hollow and aching for both of his best friends. 

In an old but well-kempt flat, Matthew Lynch reclined against his kitchen counter, head pressed into the bend between Noah Czerny’s neck and shoulder, and tried his hardest to obey the murmured coaxings of, “Breathe with me, baby.” 

Adversely, Declan Lynch, in a new and immaculate three-story house, was alone on his terrace, having fled the confines of his bedroom so as not to wake his fiancée, Ashley, when his heartbeat had become too erratic for him to remain still. 

Together and apart, they prayed for their brother. 

Inside a hospital room in Henrietta, Virginia, Ronan Lynch slept and slept and slept. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why am I getting myself into another multichapter right now? I don't know, but I couldn't resist this one, so here we are.  
> Fic is titled for Hozier's As It Was.  
> There is no magic in this AU, so Ronan is not a dreamer and Opal is not a fawn-girl and Cabeswater doesn't exist.  
> This chapter is pretty short compared to what I normally upload, but it felt finished, so I'm going with it.  
> If you have any questions/requests, drop a comment or send me a message on Tumblr at themagiciansthief. :)  
> Thank you so much for reading! <3
> 
> P.S. "Dadam" was inspired by a comment someone left on one of EtoileGarden's fics (and I'm pretty sure the comment was inspired to some degree by "Adad," which she uses in her story A Favour Shared, which you should go read if you haven't), and I can't find the comment or the commenter now but if you see this, commenter, thank you.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “See Daddy?”  
> Adam’s heart stuttered. He should’ve thought to be more careful—to word himself differently and tactfully exclude Opal seeing Ronan from the realm of possibility. But he hadn’t. He’d said anything, and she’d put it out there, so what choice did he have?  
> “Okay,” he agreed, chest tight, “Let’s go see Daddy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER TW: emetophobia, panic attacks

Work had been an absolute blur. It was only a four hour shift, so Adam had known it would go by quickly from the beginning, but by the time he stepped out of the office and headed into the parking garage to retrieve his ( _Ronan’s_ ) car, he felt as though he couldn’t remember a single interaction he’d had with anyone. Not that this was an out of place occurrence as of late.

Since Ronan had been in a coma—right at three weeks now—this was the way most of his life had felt if he wasn’t at the hospital or with Opal. Wake up. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. All the filler fled him as soon as he was away from it, noncommittal and unimportant. 

Right now, there was a task at hand, so he focused on that: Take Opal to the doctor. 

He drove without thinking to the Barns, pulling in next to Henry Cheng’s hybrid and opening his door to Opal, who was running across the field to him so quickly her entire body was a blur. 

“Hi, my girl,” he breathed, pulling her into his arms and inhaling the scent of her hair. 

Henry was following behind her at a half-jog, and he stopped far enough back to give them space, raising one hand to wave at Adam.

Adam waved back.

Opal clung to him.

“She’s had kind of a rough morning,” Henry said in response to Adam’s concerned frown when Opal didn’t let go of his neck. “She had a lot of questions about Ronan, so I tried to be as honest with her as I could and it was just, you know, hard stuff to process. She said she felt closest to him out here, so we’ve been in the woods for the past half hour just talking.”

Adam closed his eyes and hugged Opal tighter.

Suddenly, he couldn’t imagine dragging his beautiful, hurting, barely-four-year-old into a pediatrician’s office to be poked and prodded and scared by someone she barely knew while she was perfectly healthy in physicality but emotionally exhausted.

“Thanks so much for keeping an eye on her, man,” Adam said to Henry, and then, to Opal, “Hey, sweetheart. We don’t have to go to the doctor today, okay? I’m gonna make another appointment for your checkup and we can do whatever you want today. Anything.”

This coaxed Opal into backing up far enough to look at him. Her wide, blue eyes were watery, as though she hadn’t quite started crying, or as though hadn’t quite stopped. “See Daddy?”

Adam’s heart stuttered. He should’ve thought to be more careful—to word himself differently and tactfully exclude Opal seeing Ronan from the realm of possibility. But he hadn’t. He’d said _anything_ , and she’d put it out there, so what choice did he have?

“Okay,” he agreed, chest tight, “Let’s go see Daddy.”

* * *

By twelve-thirty, they were on the road to Henrietta Regional Medical Center. The first thing Adam did was call to reschedule Opal’s appointment, and then he talked to her the rest of the way, because if he wasn’t talking, he’d be thinking. He told her what a good job she’d done earlier in the morning helping him sweep the sand out of the car, and what a good girl she’d been for Henry, and she informed him that Henry had made her cinnamon toast just like Ronan’s (Adam’s grip tightened on the wheel as he warred with his tear ducts) and let her help him clean out the horses’ stalls. 

They discussed everything from Opal’s impending trip to see her uncles (Matthew and Noah were taking her for a couple of days at the end of the week while Adam was away at a conference they’d barely talked him into not cancelling) to what bedtime story she wanted to hear that evening, and then the building loomed ahead of them, and as Adam eased the BMW into the parking lot, it was all he could do not to hyperventilate.

He’d been to see Ronan nearly every day since he’d been admitted, but he’d never brought Opal. She’d asked why, of course, and Adam had told her truthfully that it was because he was afraid it would scare her.

He forced himself to draw in a deep, steadying breath, and removed his daughter from the car, holding her close to his chest as they headed inside. 

“Hi,” he said when they reached the second floor information desk. 

The nurse behind it, Rosemary, was one he’d become familiar with over the past few nightmarish weeks, and she smiled softly in recognition. “You finally brought your baby. Every bit as beautiful as you said she was.”

Opal buried her face in the crook of Adam’s neck.

“Thank you,” Adam told her, rubbing Opal’s back. The strip lights in the ceiling were flickering, and it cast an uneven hue over the hall, causing slight nausea to rise in his throat. He swallowed it down. “Can we go on back?”

“You sure can, hon,” Rosemary told him. “Fair warning, just ‘cause I know you’ve been checking, his vitals have been a little high today. Not enough to be concerning, just enough that we’ve been keeping an eye on them. But we prefer too high to too low. Better chance of him waking up.”

Adam wanted to argue that there was no chance of Ronan _not_ waking up, but he knew that wasn’t true, so he just nodded his head and turned toward the patient rooms.

Ronan’s was the second to last door on the left, and Adam hesitated in front of it before pushing it open. “You remember what I told you, right, sweet pea?”

Opal pulled away from Adam’s shoulder to meet his eyes, nodding her head. 

“Daddy doesn’t really look like himself,” Adam reiterated anyway. “It’s okay if it’s a little scary for you to see him, and we can leave whenever you want.”

“Otay, Dadam,” Opal said, small voice full of conviction. “In?”

They went in.

The room was cool, but not to an uncomfortable degree. The curtains had been drawn, the television was off, and there wasn’t a speck of clutter. Had it not been for Ronan’s impossibly real presence on the bed, Adam would have believed the space to be unused.

Opal did not speak. Her only reaction was to squirm to be put down, eyes locked on Ronan’s still form, the only movement coming from the even rise and fall of his chest. He was still breathing on his own, at least.

As soon as Adam set Opal on the floor, she crossed it to the bed and climbed onto the side, unnaturally cautious not to disturb the wires attached to Ronan’s head and chest, the fluid drip in his left arm, or the feeding tube disappearing into his nose. 

“Hi, Daddy,” she said, as though she were entirely unfazed. 

Adam bit down on the inside of his cheek, hard. “He’s sleeping, baby,” he reminded Opal. 

“Yeah,” she agreed, so, so quiet. “Can’ wate up.”

“No,” Adam confirmed, voice watery. “He can’t wake up right now.”

Opal shifted, then, positioning her tiny body so that her head rested on Ronan’s stomach, and reached her hand out for Adam, who rushed to her and took it immediately, careful not to grip it tightly enough to hurt her.

“Daddy hea’ us?” she asked, barely a whisper.

“Kind of,” Adam told her, stroking her hair back from her face. “He probably won’t remember any of it if—when he wakes up, but those little things on his head are hooked up to one of the big machines, and they’re running something called an EEG. It’s monitoring Daddy’s brain, so we can watch the screen and see him listening to us.”

“Oh,” Opal said, eyes widening in awe. “Me see?”

Adam sat down on the edge of the bed, easing Opal gingerly into his lap, and pointed toward the monitor in question. “Say something,” he instructed quietly.

“Love ‘ou, Daddy,” Opal told Ronan, and immediately, the colored lines on the screen spiked higher before cresting downward again. 

Opal gasped.

Adam closed his eyes. 

“‘Ou tell’m,” Opal instructed excitedly.

“I love you, Ro,” Adam breathed, opening his eyes to seek out Ronan’s hand and squeeze it.

The lines danced again.

* * *

There were plenty more questions for Adam to answer before they could leave. Opal wanted to know what the white numbers meant (Ronan’s blood pressure) and what the green number was (Ronan’s heart rate) and why there was a clamp on his finger (to monitor his temperature). She wanted to know why he had an NG-tube (“That’s how Daddy has to eat right now.”) and what the IV was for (“Fluids and medicine, sometimes.”) and what had caused the coma in the first place (“They don’t really know, sweetie. He just got sick.”) By the end of it, Adam was thankful she hadn’t uncovered his lower half and started asking about the urinary and rectal catheters. 

When she was finally ready to go, she crawled up the mattress to kiss Ronan’s cheek and then latched herself back onto Adam, who bent to kiss his forehead while fighting not to cry for the umpteenth time in the past hour.

On the drive back to the Barns, Gansey called.

“Hey,” Adam said when he picked up, phone between his ear and shoulder so he could switch on his blinker.

“Hey,” Gansey echoed. “Henry said you were going to take Opal to see Ronan when he left? I thought she had a checkup this morning.”

“She did,” Adam confirmed, palming the phone again. “But she was upset when I got home, and it’s not like she was going to the doctor because something was _wrong_ , so. I just rescheduled. She asked to go see Ronan instead.”

Gansey was silent for a beat. Then, “How did it go?”

“Surprisingly well,” Adam told him, glancing up to the rearview mirror to see that Opal was dozing in her seat. “She was mostly just really curious about how everything worked. Said hi to him, told him she loved him, and that was it.”

“Good,” Gansey said, and then, “Adam—” hesitant, like he was going to follow up with something he was reluctant to say. “You don’t sound great.”

Adam had been holding it together so well. Maybe by the skin of his teeth, and maybe without functioning quite like a human being, but he’d been doing such a good job of pretending. Apparently, all it took was his best friend’s acknowledgment that he wasn’t himself to prompt him to ease the car to the side of the road, shut it off, and break down into shuddering, silent sobs. 

“I’m not,” he admitted with an entirely humorless laugh. “I’m not great.”

Opal was fully asleep now, thank god, head tipped to the side, drool trailing down her chin. She did not wake to Adam’s breakdown.

“I’m going to come up,” Gansey said, like it was nothing. Like he would’ve done it all along, if Adam had just asked. He’d cancelled all his classes at Georgetown the week Ronan had fallen into the coma, telling his students there’d been a family emergency, and stayed with Adam at the Barns for a full seven days before returning to D.C. two weeks ago.

“I can’t let you do that,” Adam sighed shakily, scrubbing a hand over his face. “You can’t take any more time off, Gans. It’s fine, I’m not gonna do anything stupid. I’m just really stressed. Orla’s been a fucking saint to watch Opal as much as she has been, and Henry’s been able to fill in where she can’t so far, but I’m afraid I’m gonna have to hire an actual babysitter at some point and I can’t think about leaving her with someone she doesn’t know, let alone someone _I_ don’t. But I can’t keep missing work, and I have this conference coming up and I know she’ll be fine with Matt and Noah, but she’s never not slept with me at night and I just—”

“Adam,” Gansey interjected, voice smooth and soothing. “Take a breath. It’s all right. I’m going to come up tonight and take a personal day tomorrow. That’s all. No more than one. You just need a little help right now, and I know you aren’t comfortable asking for it, but I’m coming anyway.”

Fresh tears welled in Adam’s eyes. “I love you so much, man,” he choked out.

“I love you— _all_ of you—more than anything. There’s nothing I—or Jane, for that matter—wouldn’t do for you. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Adam managed. “I know.”

“I’ll see you soon,” Gansey told him. 

“See you,” Adam said, and hung up the phone.

* * *

When they returned home, Adam removed Opal from her carseat, careful not to wake her, and carried her upstairs to her room, settling her into the bed that was only utilized for her naps. 

He wanted to sleep, too, at least until Gansey arrived, but he was afraid if he allowed himself a moment of unconsciousness throughout the day he wouldn’t be able to successfully sleep himself into oblivion at night, so he headed into the study—Declan’s old room—and booted up his computer.

The webcam took a moment to power on, and when it did, he almost changed his mind. The version of himself reflected back to him on the screen was gaunt and hollow, dark circles around his eyes and beneath his cheeks. This wasn’t how he wanted Ronan to see him, but he’d promised himself he’d keep the video logs up, so he pressed record, vowing to do a better job of taking care of himself if for no other reason than to prove to Ronan that he could.

“Hey, babe,” he started, lifting a fist to his mouth and clearing his throat, voice still strained from crying. “Um, I brought O to see you today. I hadn’t before now because I thought it’d freak her out, all the machines and everything, but she handled it a lot better than I thought she would. Lot better than I did.” 

Adam paused for a moment, eyes flitting downward as he plucked at a stray thread on his pants. “We’re—we’re doing fine here, but everything’s, you know, a lot different without you. Opal’s been spending a lot of time with Orla, which I know you’ll be pissed about, but I promise she’s not as bad an influence as you think, even if Opal’s started calling everything a _‘tastrophe_. Henry watched her this morning, and he made her cinnamon toast, just like you. Matt’s gonna take her for a couple days later this week, ‘cause I’m going out of town for work. I really didn’t want to, but I let them talk me into it somehow. It’ll be a good check, at least. 

All the animals are doing good.” That slip— _good,_ not _well_ —would be a sure tell to Ronan that Adam had been shaken up while recording this, if his appearance hadn’t been enough of one already. “I haven’t killed all the tomatoes yet, believe it or not. But by the time you’re watching this, they’ll probably be dead, so. Sorry in advance. Uh. Gansey’s coming over tonight, just to check in and keep us company for a little while. Either he or Blue has been calling pretty much every day still.

I don’t really have a whole lot else to say, except just that I—we—we all miss you. And we really hope you wake up soon. Okay. Talk to you tomorrow.”

Adam clicked to stop the recording and titled it with the date, saving it in the folder with all the rest so far. He never made any of them too long, didn’t want to overwhelm Ronan, when he was finally awake and watching them, but it would still take up a fairly extensive amount of time, as many of them as there were—seventeen so far; one every day since he’d decided to start making them, each between two and five minutes. Today’s was easily the shortest, due to the fact that as soon as he powered the computer back off he lost it again, burying his head in his arms atop the desk, shoulders shaking.

There had been easier days and harder ones throughout this entire ordeal, but today was arguably in the top five worst, including the day it had happened. Adam wasn’t even sure why—he just couldn’t deal right now. He felt like a selfish, petulant child, but if he hadn’t been trying to keep quiet enough not to wake Opal, he probably would have screamed or thrown a fit or broken something, just to watch it shatter. It wasn’t fair. He wanted _Ronan_.

* * *

He wasn’t sure when he lost the battle with his eyelids, but what felt like a millisecond later, Gansey was shaking him gently awake, Opal on his hip. 

Adam shot up from his seat, wiping his sleep-bleary eyes, hand flying to Opal’s cheek. “ _Shit._ Is she okay? Where was she when you got here? God, I didn’t mean—”

“Shhh, Adam, it’s all right. She was in her bed. She’d just woken up. You would have heard if she’d called for you.” Gansey easily passed Opal over to Adam, who hugged her tightly to his chest. “Have you eaten?”

Oh. No, Adam realized dully. He hadn’t. When _was_ the last time he’d eaten? Opal had had breakfast, but had he fed her after that? What time was it? 

He shook his head. 

“Do you feel like going out?”

He shook his head again.

“I know you don’t want to cook, and I’m dreadful at it, so we can order in or I can pick something up. Is there anything that doesn’t sound terrible?”

Adam shrugged. Nothing sounded _terrible_ , per se, but nothing sounded appetizing, either. Eating was a necessity, like bathing, or sleeping, or going to work. Adam was running on such a baseline that anything done for pleasure had been negated. He was surviving, keeping his daughter healthy, and keeping the farm together. That was all.

“What do you think, love?” Gansey asked Opal, the backs of his fingers brushing her cheek. “Are you hungry? Is there anything you want?”

“Mmm…” Opal hummed, considering. Then, lifting her head to meet Gansey’s eyes, “Peesa b’ed?”

Gansey smiled, leaning forward to kiss the tip of her nose. “Pizza bread it is.”

* * *

Downstairs, Gansey ordered a large pizza for himself and Adam and cheese sticks for Opal, settling onto the couch with her and turning on Netflix to find a cartoon for her to watch while Adam headed outside to tend to the animals. 

When he returned, Opal was curled up in Gansey’s lap, eyes glued to what must have been a particularly riveting episode of Peppa Pig. “Thanks for doing this,” he said, sinking down next to them. “You really didn’t have to.”

Gansey waved him off as though this was nonsense, and didn’t give him the satisfaction of acknowledgement. “Blue sends her love. She wanted to come, but she’s waiting on a shipment of teas to come in, so she’ll be at the shop all day tomorrow.”

“How dare she stay home and _work_?” Adam teased halfheartedly, and then, after a moment, softer, “His vitals were up today. Not by a lot. They said it means there’s a better shot of him coming out of it.”

Gansey nodded, absently carding his fingers through Opal’s hair. “Has there been any increase in brain activity?”  
“I didn’t ask.” Adam leaned back against the couch, closing his eyes. 

“Lie down,” Gansey encouraged, jostling Adam’s shoulder with his own. “Get some horizontal sleep. Whatever was going on at your desk did not count.”

Adam wanted to protest—wanted to explain to Gansey that if he slept now, he’d be up all night—but, he reasoned, even if it was true, he wouldn’t be _alone_. Gansey would be here with him, and maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. 

He stretched himself out across the two free cushions, feet pressed to Gansey’s thigh, and slept.

When he woke next, it was to Gansey telling him food had arrived. He’d already placed two slices of pizza on a plate for Adam, and handed it to him along with a glass of sweet tea when he righted himself. 

Opal was on the floor, the entire box of cheese sticks open before her. None of them ever bothered offering her dishes for foods she could eat with her hands anymore. She would discard them and opt for the hardwood every time—not to mention that if they’d tried to select the cheese sticks for her, they would undoubtedly have been the wrong ones.

“I’m gonna sound like a broken record before you leave,” Adam said, “but thank you. Really. How much was this? My wallet’s upstairs, I’ll pay you back.”

Gansey, bless him, did _not_ roll his eyes. What he did do—the Gansey equivalent—was turn his attention away from Adam entirely, focusing solely on his own food. 

Adam sighed.

“Unca Gans?” Opal asked, half-eaten cheese stick in hand.

Gansey lowered himself to the floor to sit next to her, crossing his legs to give his plate a stable surface to rest on. “What’s up?”

“Dadam sad.”

Adam froze.

Gansey glanced up at him, and then back down at Opal, likely forcing himself to keep their newly agreed upon policy in mind. _Ronan doesn’t lie to her_ , Adam had said, when they’d been trying to determine the best way to explain the situation. _We can’t lie to her. No matter what she asks, we stick as close as we can to the truth. It’s what he’d want._

“He is,” Gansey agreed, running a hand through his hair, which fell perfectly back into place afterward. “We’re all a little sad right now, princess. We miss your daddy very much, and it’s frustrating not having him here with us. Most of all for Adam.”

Opal took a moment to process this, and then uttered, “Me sad, too.”

Adam released the slice of pizza he’d been in the process of picking up and dug his nails ever so slightly into his palm. He wasn’t doing this again. Not in front of her.

Gansey didn’t miss a beat. “It’s okay to be sad. Perfectly normal. Did seeing your daddy today help, or was it hard for you?”

“He’p,” Opal said quietly. “But me wan’ Daddy home.”

“So do I,” Gansey agreed, pressing a kiss to the top of Opal’s head. “It doesn’t feel fair, does it?”

Opal’s blonde curls bounced as she shook her head, and she tilted her face up to meet Gansey’s eyes before asking, “Me see Unca Dec? Loots lite Daddy.”

Adam pushed himself up from the couch. “Gans, can you—can you just keep an eye on her for a minute? I gotta—”

“Of course,” Gansey assured him quickly. “We’ll be right here.”

It was something Adam had been fighting not to admit to himself—that he’d been avoiding Declan because of how heavily he resembled Ronan—but it apparently had an effect on even Opal, so how crazy was it, really?

Crazy enough, according to his brain, which was compelling him toward the downstairs bathroom, where he promptly shut and locked the door behind himself, sinking to the floor with his back to the wall.

He’d only had one actual, full-blown panic attack since the beginning of all this before now, and he wasn’t sure why this—Opal asking to see Declan, simply because he looked so much like Ronan—was what pushed him over the edge. Maybe because it implied that _Ronan_ looked less like Ronan to their daughter in his current state than Declan did. but he knew there was no talking himself down from it without letting it run its course.

His breathing was already ragged, and his chest felt like it was attempting to separate itself from the rest of his body, heartbeat so hard and quick it verged on painful. 

Images flashed before him of Ronan lying in their bed, unresponsive, that first morning, and then of the first time Adam had seen him after he’d been admitted, and then of him last week, and then yesterday, and then today. The lack of contrast was startling enough to start him shaking. A person’s appearance should differ from day to day, at least to some degree, but pulling these memories of Ronan onto a hypothetical string and assessing them all directly next to each other proved that nothing was changing. He was caught in time, preserved like a photograph, hauntingly beautiful. 

What if this was the last way Adam ever saw him? What if he’d subjected their daughter to forming her last memory of her father while he lay in a hospital bed, covered in wires, unable to speak. Unable to tell her he loved her back.

What if he never woke up? 

_What if he never woke up?_

Adam had barely pushed himself to his knees before he was prying open the lid of the toilet and throwing up into the bowl. This hadn’t happened with one of his panic attacks in a while—not that he had them often anymore—but the chance was part of the reason he’d chosen the bathroom to isolate himself to. Sometimes it stunned his mind into silence, but not now. Not today. Still, there echoed a steady mantra of _maybe he’s gone, maybe he’s gone_ , and before he’d had time to recover from the first hit, Adam was heaving again, clutching at his stomach to soothe the ache of expelling food he hadn’t even had time to digest yet. He’d learned at a very young age that if he was going to be sick, he’d better do it quietly, and his only reprieve as he vomited for a third time was that he knew Opal and Gansey wouldn’t be able to hear.

When he was sure he was finished, panic abated for the moment, he stood, flushed the toilet, and rinsed out his mouth, avoiding the mirror and flipping off the light before heading out of the room.

He must have looked as bad as he’d thought, because when he reentered the living room, Gansey’s expression was filled to the brim with sympathy and pain. 

Rather than heading back for the couch, Adam settled onto the floor next to Gansey and Opal, who was happily shoving cheese sticks into her mouth again, attention back on the TV.

“Are you all right?” Gansey asked, almost a whisper, resting a hand gingerly on Adam’s stomach.

Damn. He’d always been a little too intuitive. 

“Yeah,” Adam said, forcing something that was meant to be a smile but felt more like a wince.

“Hurting?”

“Yeah,” he said again, defeated this time.

“Could you keep down some Valium? I can cut it in half so it’s not too strong. Good for anxiety _and_ muscle cramps. Two birds with one stone.”

Normally, Adam would have objected without a second thought. But this was not a normal situation. “That sounds awesome,” he admitted. “I’d be losing my fucking mind without you.”

“You’ll never have to worry about that,” Gansey assured him, clapping a hand on his knee and climbing out of the floor. 

* * *

Several hours, half a Valium, and two slices of reheated pizza later, Adam was calm. Or, at least, the closest to calm he’d been in days. He tried not to think too hard about the fact that Gansey would be leaving the tomorrow, tried not to focus too heavily on the fact that he, himself, had to work in the morning, and just allowed himself to pretend for a moment that he, his best friend, and his daughter, were enjoying an evening in together with no underlying cause. 

Gansey played trains with Opal for a while, and then they all went outside to watch the moon rise and say goodnight to the cows (Gansey dropped to his knees and prayed right along with them, two-hundred dollar khakis and all), and then, finally, it was time to put Opal to bed. 

The routine normally, with Ronan, was that Adam read Opal a story, and then Ronan sang her a song, but the first night Adam had tried to conquer both tasks, he’d broken down halfway through _Wild Mountain Thyme_ and it had been a disaster for everyone involved. When Adam informed Gansey of this, his response, immediate and gentle, was, “I could sing to her. If she wouldn’t mind.”

So Adam settled her into bed—his and Ronan’s this time, rather than her own—and read her _Goldilocks and the Three Bears,_ and then Gansey stepped in, sat down next to her, and began to sing. 

It was low, hardly above a whisper, so it took Adam a moment to make out that it was The Beatles’ _Hey, Jude_. 

It had Opal asleep before the second verse. 

“Why that song?” Adam asked, when they headed back downstairs. 

“Oh,” Gansey laughed breathily, catching Adam off guard and passing by the entrance to the living room. “My mom used to sing it to Helen and I.”

“Where are you going?” Adam asked, and then, “Wait, your _mom_ listened to The Beatles?”

“I thought maybe we could sit on the porch,” Gansey said, turning back to face Adam like he’d just realized this may be the wrong course of action. “We don’t have to, of course. It’s such a nice night, is all.”

Adam stepped ahead of him and pushed open the door when they reached it, preceding him into the cool, crisp air. 

They didn’t bother with the weathered, green patio chairs to their right, opting instead to simply seat themselves at the porch’s edge, feet resting on the steps. 

They left the door open so they’d be able to hear Opal if she called for them, and Adam could hear a million versions himself in his head berating Ronan for doing such a trivial thing, reminding him that the electric bill wouldn’t pay itself, even if Ronan’s (their; they _were_ married) last concern was money. 

He shook his head to clear it and leaned back against the pillar nearest to him, gazing upward toward the stars. 

“I truly believe he’ll pull through,” Gansey said—maybe because Adam needed to hear it, or maybe because he really did believe it. “We’re still in very safe territory right now, and even if we weren’t, this is _Ronan._ He’ll come out of it to spite us, if nothing else.”

Adam let out a huff of laughter. “God, I hope you’re right.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a nondescript amount of time, listening to the crickets and frogs, and Adam thought he would be perfectly content to fall asleep right there, where the world sounded like it did with Ronan, when the only time spent indoors was strictly for necessity. 

He understood perfectly why this was where Opal felt closest to Ronan. Which gave him an idea. 

* * *

The tent was a pop-up, so pitching it directly in front of the house wasn’t nearly as much of a hassle as finding it had been (Adam had thought Gansey was going to have a stroke when a mouse scampered across his foot in the basement). 

The air mattress—stored right next to it, thankfully—was a queen, plenty spacious enough for them all to fit, and Gansey raided the closet of the downstairs guest room, producing a landslide of pillows and blankets to make it up with. Once they’d blown it up and shoved it inside, Adam brought Opal downstairs, telling her when she asked why he’d woken her up that they were going camping. 

This, of course, elicited a request for s’mores, which, in hindsight, Adam should have considered. Luckily, they had all the ingredients (even if the graham crackers were a little stale), and he built a quick, makeshift fire in the chiminea next to the porch with some scattered twigs and a few pieces of scrap wood he found in one of the barns, fashioning a marshmallow skewer out of a long, thin stick. 

It was far past Opal’s bedtime, but Adam assumed the overload of sugar would be enough to keep her awake, even if he’d been breaking all her s’mores in half and splitting the discarded sections with Gansey. To his surprise, however, she began to drift again in no time, not even awake enough to fight him when he used his sleeve to wipe the chocolate from her mouth. 

Once they’d doused the small fire in water from the garden hose, Adam and Gansey crawled into the tent and settled Opal between them, air mattress comfortably firm with their combined weight. 

“Is this better?” Gansey asked, hushed. 

Nothing would be normal until Ronan was back home, but, because he couldn’t deny the fact that this was the most sane he’d felt in weeks, Adam nodded his head, allowing his eyes to slip closed. Maybe, he thought, sleep wouldn’t be so impossible to come by after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took me eight million years to get up!
> 
> The mention of Wild Mountain Thyme was borne solely of my love of a video of Jensen Ackles singing it, and Hey, Jude was a direct reference to Supernatural, because I was a slave to that fandom before I was a slave to any other. 
> 
> If you have any questions/suggestions, feel free to drop a comment or hit me up on tumblr at themagiciansthief!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I really miss you, Ro.” It came out as a whisper, as nothing. Still, the EEG lines wavered. “And I really hope you—” No. He couldn’t. If he said it, he was considering an alternative, and that was unacceptable. “Okay. I—I’m leaving. I’ll see you as soon as I get back. I’ll go pick up O and we’ll come straight here.” Eyes closed, he leaned to press a long, firm kiss to Ronan’s cheek. “I love you,” he repeated. “I love you so much.”  
> Then he turned to go.

Adam’s flight was delayed. 

He should’ve been upset about it, probably. Would’ve been, in a typical headspace. But now, a delayed flight meant he got to spend another short, precious hour with his daughter and brothers-in-law, and that he’d still have time to stop in at the hospital to see Ronan before he left. So he couldn’t find it within himself to be anything but relieved.

The conference was in Cincinnati, Ohio, which was only a seven hour drive, give or take, but the company had insisted on flying him out, and he wasn’t going to argue. He didn’t have any panels to attend until the next day, so the delay didn’t affect his agenda. He’d still arrive at his hotel plenty early enough to toss and turn all night. 

Currently, he was stepping onto the elevator of the building housing Matthew and Noah’s flat, Opal in one arm, her bags in the other.

“Can you push the ‘five’ button for me, baby cakes?” he asked, nuzzling Opal’s nose with his own and leaning down so she’d be able to reach. 

“Five!” she announced, punching the plastic circle with the heel of her hand and clapping excitedly as it lit up. 

“Good job,” Adam laughed, hiking her up on his hip. “Are you excited?”

“Yeah,” Opal said, grinning up at him. “Love my Matty an’ Noah.”

“They love you, too,” Adam told her, holding her more tightly to him as he stepped out of the elevator to slip past someone stepping on. 

Matthew and Noah’s flat was directly in the middle of the hall, which put them immediately in front of the door. “Do you want to knock?” Adam asked. 

“Me knock!” Opal confirmed readily. 

Adam set her on her feet and she raced ahead of him, small fist rapping tirelessly on the door as soon as she reached it. 

A moment later, it was pulled open by Matthew, who had Noah wrapped around him from behind, both grinning from ear to ear as they bent to collectively sweep Opal into their arms. 

Matthew held her feet, Noah her hands, and they swung her back and forth long enough to elicit an eruption of giggles out of her before retreating from the doorway and beckoning Adam inside. 

“How are you?” Noah asked, Opal balanced precariously on his waist as he pulled Adam into a tight hug, sandwiching her between them. 

“I’m, um.”  _ Don’t lie.  _ “I’ve been better, but I’ve been a lot worse.” Then, before pulling away, soft enough for only Noah to hear, “How’s Matt?”

Noah gestured  _ so-so  _ with his hand and bent to put Opal down when she began squirming at the sight of Lemon, Noah and Matthew’s two-year-old yellow beagle, who had just ventured into the room to sniff out the excitement. “He’s doing pretty well today,” Noah whispered, eyes flitting across the room to where Matthew was slipping on Lemon’s leash, presumably to let her out onto their grass-sewn patio. Then, to Matthew, “Hey, baby? You wanna take O with you so Adam and I can go put her stuff away?”

“Sure,” Matthew said, taking Opal’s hand in the one of his that wasn’t holding Lemon’s leash. “We’ll be right back in.”

Noah nudged Adam with his elbow and nodded toward the guest bedroom, which Adam followed him into dutifully, setting Opal’s bags down on the bed. 

“Just thought it’d be easier to talk in here,” Noah explained. “Anyway, uh, yeah. Today’s a pretty good day. He talked to Declan this morning, which seems to help, and he’s been keeping himself pretty busy with a new work project—I guess they’ve got him designing models for a housing development opening up in D.C. But it’s been…rough. To say the least. He’s woken up needing his inhaler, like, basically every night since—you know.”

Adam sighed, running a hand through his hair, and very pointedly did not consider the possibility of Opal and Matthew collectively jerking out of their sleep in a blind panic. “I should be checking in on him more. I’m sorry, I’ve just—”

“You’d better not,” Noah warned, hand on his hip, left brow cocked. “You’re his  _ husband _ , Adam. You’re allowed to be miserable right now. I can handle Matt. If he ever needs you, I’ll tell you. Please trust me.”

“I do,” Adam assured him, offering him a tired smile. “You know I do.”

“She doesn’t have to sleep in here,” Noah said, waving absently towards Opal’s belongings. “Just an easier place to keep all her stuff in one spot. We can keep her in bed with us if you think that’ll be easiest. She sleeps with you guys, right?”

Adam’s heart swelled with gratitude. “She does, yeah,” he managed. 

“Then that’s what we’ll plan for,” he said, clapping a hand on Adam’s bicep. “Come on, come grab an energy drink or something. I’m exhausted just looking at you.”

Adam had no intention of doing any such thing, but he did trail Noah back out to the kitchen, just in time for Matthew and Opal to return from outside, Lemon already pulling at Matthew to remove her collar. 

“Hey, man,” Matthew said, finally addressing Adam as he hung Lemon’s leash back on the hook next to the sliding patio doors. “How’re you holding up?”

“I’m okay,” Adam said, which was an oversimplification, but he wasn’t about to pile anything else onto Matthew’s plate. “How are you?”

“Okay,” Matthew said, a little disconnected, nodding his head. He was smiling, because when was he ever  _ not _ , but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Are you hungry? You should eat before you go if you haven’t already.”

“Hung’y!” Opal chimed in from Matthew’s heels, gazing up at him and tugging on his fingers. 

Matthew laughed, much more genuine now, and lifted her onto the island countertop next to him, blowing a raspberry onto her cheek. “We can take care of that,” he assured her. “If you haven’t had lunch, I bet your dad hasn’t either, huh?”

“Nope,” Opal tattled, shaking her head wildly. “Hung’y, Dadam?”

Adam hadn’t been hungry in weeks. “Yeah, honey,” he said anyway. 

“I could make Phillies,” Noah offered. “Not for O, obviously. We stocked up on plenty of good kid-friendly food to keep her fueled for the next couple days. Mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, fries, all that good junk.”

“Any of the above,” Adam said agreeably, taking a seat at the island and checking his watch. He had time. “I’m fine with whatever.”

“How about you, pretty girl?” Noah asked, standing with his back to the counter so she could climb onto it. “What do you want to eat?”

Opal nuzzled the back of Noah’s head, and answered, muffled, “ _ Surp’iiise. _ ”

“We can surprise you,” Noah said. “But you’ll have to get down or hide your eyes so you don’t see what I’m doing.”

“Me hide,” Opal decided, ducking her head down to bury her face in the crook of Noah’s neck.

“No peeking,” Noah told her, and got to work.

Half an hour later, he’d produced a small feast of nuggets and fries for Opal, and Phillies for himself, Matthew, and Adam.

Adam ate quickly and insisted on doing the dishes before he had to run, squeezing Opal to his chest and holding her there for a long moment before passing her back over to Noah. “I love you, sweetheart,” he told her. “You be good for your uncles and call me anytime you want to talk, okay?”

“Otay, Dadam,” Opal agreed, blowing him a kiss, which Adam mimed catching and tucking into the pocket of his shirt. “Love ‘ou.”

“Have a good flight,” Noah said, “and let us know when you land. We’ll see you Saturday.”

“Will do,” Adam agreed. “See you Saturday.”

Before he could make a move to leave, Matthew was wrapping around him like a vice, hands fisted in the back of his shirt.

Adam’s frame shuddered as he returned the hug, physically forcing himself not to lose it right then and there.

“Be safe,” Matthew told him. “We’ll check in on Ro while you’re gone, and if—if anything happens, obviously, we’ll let you know.”

The entirety of Adam’s being screamed at him not to leave. He wanted nothing more than to announce that he’d changed his mind—to remain precisely where he was and tell Opal they were having a sleepover with Matthew and Noah together, nothing more.

Instead, he peeled himself away, gave Matthew’s shoulder a quick squeeze, and nodded his head. 

On the drive to the hospital, he didn’t think.

He didn’t think about Matthew’s foreboding  _ if anything happens _ . He didn’t think about the implications of what it could mean—best or worst. Most of all, he didn’t think about the possibility that, in the case of any new development, he could be gone.

He parked the car and headed mechanically up to Ronan’s room, opening the door and very nearly running into a nurse who was just backing out with a cart.

“Oh,” the nurse—Mason, according to his badge—said, blinking, startled, back at Adam. “Sorry, man. Are you, uh—do you—”   
“I’m his husband,” Adam deadpanned. 

“ _ Oh _ ,” Mason repeated, tone much brighter. “They told me you usually came in in the mornings. I didn’t even think to expect you at the beginning of an overnight shift. My bad. How are you doing?”

_ I’d be doing a lot fucking better if you’d get out of my way _ , Adam wanted to tell him. Instead, he said, “I’m fine. How’s Ronan?”

“Stable,” Mason answered. “Nothing’s changed since I’ve been here. All his vitals look good. They’ve been running right along the edge of elevated for the past few days, but nowhere near high enough to be of any concern.”

“I know,” Adam snapped, and then blew out a breath, carding a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. Thank you. I just—I’m about to leave town for a two day conference, and I’m terrified of something happening while I’m gone, and our daughter is staying with her uncles, which is, you know, it’s fine, but it’s the first time she’s ever spent the night without at least one of us, and—”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Mason cut in easily. He didn’t sound like he was trying to get Adam to shut up—more like he genuinely wanted Adam to know that he didn’t  _ need  _ to explain himself. “You’ve got every right to be stressed. It’s a stressful situation. You guys have a daughter?”

“Yeah,” Adam said, forcibly pulling himself together. “Her name’s Opal. She just turned four the thirteenth of this month.”

“Ah, I’m a May baby, too,” Mason laughed. “That’s awesome. I bet she’s great.”

“She is,” Adam agreed. It was clear that he was being talked down from a panic, but he allowed it to happen, unable to reject comfort where he could get it these days—even if that meant from a total stranger. “She’s the love of my life.”

“Well, I’ll let you get to it,” Mason told him, finally stepping aside to let Adam fully through to Ronan’s room. “I’m finishing up rounds and then I’ll be back out at the station, so let me know if you need anything.”

“Thanks,” Adam said, trying to arrange his features into something that at the very least resembled a smile.

Mason smiled back, turned, and clicked the door shut behind him. 

Adam didn’t know if he’d ever get over how eerily quiet the hospital room was when he visited Ronan alone. It unsettled him in the same way churches always had. The concept of  _ something more  _ was lost on him. A Holy Spirit looking down on him as he sat in a pew and followed along in such a modernized version of an ancient tome it may as well have been a separate book entirely? Unlikely. Ronan’s energy inside this room? Impalpable. 

He crossed the floor to the bed anyway, bending to sweep his lips over Ronan’s forehead. He’d started losing weight now—not much, not enough to be of any concern, but still, Adam could see that his wedding band was looser on his finger than it had ever been. 

“Hey,” he said, watching the lines on the EEG monitor flurry at Ronan’s brain’s response to his voice. “I’m—I’m heading out soon. Um, for the conference I told you about last week. Opal’s already with Matt and Noah, and she didn’t even get upset when I left.”

The ribbons of color smoothed a little, as though Ronan was soothed by the idea of Opal at ease, and Adam allowed himself to pretend, just for a moment, that Ronan was  _ listening  _ rather than just hearing him.

“I had to come tell you bye, but I don’t have a lot of time.”

Adam hated this room—he always hated it, but suddenly the resentment was overwhelming, and the force of it felled him, causing his knees to buckle until he had no choice but to sit down on the edge of the bed. 

Ronan’s heart rate spiked, just barely. Just for a second.

_ Coincidence,  _ Adam told himself, and then felt Gansey reprimanding him for it.

But this, truly, was nothing more than a coincidence. Adam couldn’t allow himself to believe anything else. 

Slowly, he wrapped his fingers around the still of Ronan’s hand. He didn’t like how it felt—cold and limp in his grasp; mostly because Ronan was known for nothing if not his fire and reciprocity—but it was better than nothing. Better than not touching him at all.

“I love you,” he said. It was starting to sound like nothing to his own ears now, his voice, hollow and unanswered, but he couldn’t  _ not _ say it, just in case. Just in case Ronan heard and woke up and remembered. “I don’t want to go yet, but I. I should, I guess. You’re supposed to be, like, really early to airports or whatever. Um.” He could feel his resolve slipping and he dug his free hand just a little too tightly into the sheet beneath him, trying hard to fight back the adolescent habit of breaching the skin of his palm with his fingernails. “I really miss you, Ro.” It came out as a whisper, as nothing. Still, the EEG lines wavered. “And I really hope you—” No. He couldn’t. If he said it, he was considering an alternative, and that was unacceptable. “Okay. I—I’m leaving. I’ll see you as soon as I get back. I’ll go pick up O and we’ll come straight here.” Eyes closed, he leaned to press a long, firm kiss to Ronan’s cheek. “I love you,” he repeated. “I love you so much.”

Then he turned to go.

* * *

The flight was short, and the cab ride to the hotel was short, and as soon as Adam was settled in he pulled his cell out of his bag to call Matthew. 

“Hey,” he answered on the second ring, sounding slightly out of breath, but not in a way that necessarily came across to Adam as tired. 

“Hey,” Adam responded, sinking down into the memory-foam softness of his suite’s king-sized bed and despising every fiber of it. “I made it, so I just wanted to check in. See how she’s doing.”

“She’s great,” Matthew told him with no hesitancy. “We’ve been playing tag for the past half hour and she’s helping Noah give Lemon a bath right now. Do you want to talk to her?”

“That’s okay,” Adam told him, lying back across the mattress and draping his free arm over his eyes. “I don’t want her to think about me if she’s not right now. I appreciate you guys doing this so much.”

“We’d do anything for her.  _ And  _ for you,” Matthew said sincerely, and then, a little quieter, “Did you see him before you left?”

Adam’s chest twisted, and he swallowed to smooth away the knot. “Yeah. He’s doing fine. The same.”

There was a pause. A long one. When Matthew finally spoke, his voice was tight enough that Adam could hear him fighting back tears. “I really miss him, man. It’s funny, you know, ‘cause it’s not like I’ve never gone a month without seeing him—or, hell, even  _ talking  _ to him—before, but I guess the difference is that I always could’ve if I wanted to or—or needed to, or whatever.”

“I miss him, too,” Adam breathed. It was different for him, he knew, than it was for Matthew. Not in a  _ greater  _ or  _ lesser  _ sense, just in the way that Ronan was missed. Adam wasn’t aching for the parts of Ronan that tucked Matthew under his arm and mussed his hair every weekend at dinner, and Matthew wasn’t longing for the feel of Ronan’s sleep-solid body curled around him like a shell every night. Matthew was missing his brother, and all that that relationship entailed. Adam was missing his husband. But missing him together, no matter how isolated the specifics, brought about a sense of solidarity that made it feel a little less impossible to survive.

“You should get some sleep,” Matthew sighed into the receiver. They hadn’t spoken much—not as much as they ordinarily did—since Ronan had fallen into the coma, and Adam guessed this was due at least in part to the fact that they were both too afraid to burden the other. But this had been nice, and he knew now, from Matthew’s reluctant tone at the notion of letting him go, that the desire to carry on the conversation was two-sided.

Matthew wasn’t wrong, though. Whether he was going to get it when they hung up the phone or not, he needed to at least attempt enough rest to clear his mind for the day ahead. “Yeah,” he said, lifting his arm off his eyes and pressing the heel of his hand against his forehead to fight off the impending headache he could already feel building there. “I need to text Blue and Gans, too. Let them know I got here in one piece. I’ll talk to you guys tomorrow, okay? Tell Noah goodnight for me. And if Opal needs me for anything, I don’t care what time it is, just call back.”

“Of course,” Matthew assured him. “Love you, man. Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Love you, too.”   
Adam hung up the phone and shot a quick text to Blue, which she responded to less than a minute later with a message reading,  _ Good! Now get your ass to bed. x _

Adam undressed and brushed his teeth and climbed under the covers.

He did not sleep.

* * *

When morning came, he’d been staring absently at the ceiling for hours, and decided upon learning via the complementary alarm clock that it was a quarter past six that if rest hadn’t come yet, he may as well give up.

The coffee in the room was generic but not terrible, and Adam brewed and drank a full pot before dressing for the day. There was still nearly an hour until his first panel, and the conference room in the basement level of the hotel was hosting the event, so he had no travel time to take into account. 

Just as he was about to unlock his phone and text Gansey, figuring they could squeeze in a call if he happened to be awake, it started vibrating against his palm.

When Adam registered the caller ID, his entire body began to tremble.

HRMC. The hospital.

Adam allowed himself precisely a quarter of a second to get it together and then swiped his thumb across the bottom of the screen, sliding the bar to answer the call.

“Hello?” he asked, knowing he sounded as weak as he felt. His left hand was curled into a fist at his side, nails already digging in.

“Mr. Lynch?” asked a familiar voice. “It’s Mason. We met yesterday?”

“Yeah,” Adam breathed, sinking onto the suite’s small sofa because he knew he’d be fighting a losing battle if he tried to keep himself upright much longer. “Yes. Hi. Is something—did something—”

“I was just finishing up my shift, checked back in on Ronan after rounds because I remembered I’d forgotten to chart his temperature, and, Adam—”

Adam held his breath.

There was something hesitant to Mason’s voice—something not quite  _ sure _ , but whatever the implications, they could be sorted out later. His next words deemed everything else irrelevant. Time stopped. The room spun.

“He’s awake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT'S UP SORRY IT'S BEEN A MILLION YEARS
> 
> look i get that it doesn't make sense that adam usually visits ronan in the mornings okay i'd just already written it in and i don't wanna fuck with shit so pretend he goes before work or smth idk USE UR IMAGINATION
> 
> also i'm cryin Real Tears at my boy breakin down on some dude he doesn't even fuckin know bc STRESS but it's fine we fine
> 
> (ps there should be two more chapters to this if all goes according to plan ok thx love u all <3)


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